Milo realized he was starving as his mother slapped one pancake after another onto his plate, then drizzled at least a half-cup of syrup over the stack.
She took a seat, leaving only one chair empty.
“Where’s Dad?” Milo asked.
Avoiding his eyes, she spooned a heap of scrambled eggs onto his plate. “He had to take off on a trip. It’s only for a couple of days. A client in the city is opening a toy store, and he wants your father to help with distribution.”
Anger flared in Milo. He couldn’t help his next words. “Maybe Dad can help him stock up on magic wands. Or does he only specialize in flaming swords and rocks that tell the future?”
Emma kicked him beneath the table, still smiling sweetly at her mother. Alexandra looked glum as she screwed the cap on the maple syrup jug.
“I miss him, too,” she said. “Every time he leaves. But this time is different. When he comes back, he’s finally going to explain the family business to you.”
She gave Milo a knowing look.
“Family business?” Milo said.
She nodded. “Family business. Now let’s eat and go about our day like normal people. It’s all we can really ask of this life.”
Milo’s ears burned as he set about eating his pancakes. Emma made small talk about the upcoming school year, but Milo ignored the conversation.
A single question ran through his mind on repeat: What the heck is going on?
CHAPTER 9
T he night of his father’s return, Milo was in bed, reading and trying to take his mind off the fact that his first day of school was the following day.
Max knocked softly before entering his son’s room, as he often did when he got home after one of his trips. He still smelled like the road, like the humid evening air that sticks to a person when they drive for a long stretch with the window open. Looking glum, he took a seat at the edge of the bed.
Milo set aside a book on quantum physics and subatomic particles he’d been reading. The complex theories in its pages brought him a measure of comfort, since the idea of the existence of multiple dimensions was stranger than he—and even most physicists—could easily grasp. Magic almost seemed possible by comparison.
He avoided his father’s eyes, though he noticed bags under each one. He looked exhausted as he took the physics book from Milo’s hands.
“You and your science books. I’m proud of you, you know. I barely understand this stuff.”
Milo waited. His father sighed and looked absently at the walls.
“You can speak freely now,” he said. “What’s been bothering you?”
Milo remembered the promise he had made to his sister. He wouldn’t mention anything that might stress his father out. He was sure the man would spill his secrets soon enough. Feeling like the bigger man for once in his life, Milo gave his dad a break. He turned to a lesser concern that had nevertheless been a source of anxiety all summer.
“It’s school. Mostly.”
“Why is that?”
Milo shrugged. “Why can’t I take the year off and start high school when I’m fifteen, like everyone else? You and me, we could spend the next year together. You could teach me the family business.”
If his father had taken the hint about the family business, he didn’t show it.
“Milo, listen to me. You’re just as smart and well prepared as any of those other kids—”
“It’s not about being smart! Look at me. I’m a shrimp. All the other kids are going to be bigger than I am. Besides, why not take a year to travel with you? I’m sure I could learn a lot about your business.”
His father frowned at him. “I don’t know what you mean about my business. You’d like to be a salesman? If that’s the case, you had better finish school first. No one buys from an uneducated salesperson.”
“Actually, people buy from salespeople they like. It’s a well-known fact in the business world.”
Smiling, his dad rolled his eyes. “Smartass.”
Milo sighed, frustrated. Emma and her dumb promise to keep silent—it was killing him.
“Besides,” his father said. “You’re not a shrimp. You’ll grow soon enough. The same thing happened to me. I grew like a Banto tree when I was your—”
His father paused. Milo blinked at him.
“A Banto tree?”
His dad pressed his lips into a thin line, something he did when he was worried. Then his face went back to normal, and he gave Milo a disturbingly fake smile and a wink.
“Just a tree I came across during one my trips in Asia. I’ve never told you about that place, have I? Someday I will, when you don’t have to get to sleep.”
I could give a crap about Asia right now, Milo wanted to say.
Instead, he sat up against the headboard, arms crossed over his chest. He felt ridiculous, like a little kid being tucked into bed by a father who didn’t even love him enough to tell him a bedtime story. Milo knew his father had a story, too—an amazing one.
“Dad, why don’t you just spill it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Stop trying to avoid it. I’m not six years old.”
“Yes, you are,” his father said, slumping, as if he had reached the limit of his patience. “You are six years old, and that’s not a bad thing at all.”
Milo could only frown. Was his father trying to insult him? Or was this some sort of joke?
“What I mean is,” Max said, loosening his shoulders a bit, “you’re just a kid, and so what? Six, sixteen, or six hundred—age doesn’t matter. I’m much older than you, and there are things I’ll never understand. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that obsessing over things I’ll never understand will only make me unhappy.”
“So, you just accept whatever explanation is easiest?” Milo said.
“No. I accept my responsibilities to the people I love. And you, my boy, even though you’re just a kid—”
“Just a kid?” Milo said sourly.
“Yes, a six-year-old, remember? A brilliant, anxious six-year-old in a world a million times older than the oldest rock you’ve ever touched. And even so, you also have responsibilities. To your sister, your mother, and to me. Those responsibilities won’t change no matter how old you are. In fact, they’ll only grow in number once you have a wife and kids of your own.”
“So, your point is…”
“My point is to enjoy being six while it lasts.”
A piercing look had come into his father’s eyes while he said this. All of this six-year-old stuff was actually a warning—that Milo’s life was only going to get more difficult the wiser he became. It made perfect sense now.
“Ignorance is bliss,” Milo said, “and you want me to walk around like an ignorant dummy.”
His father looked away, pausing for a dreadful moment. Milo thought he might get up and leave.
“Look, Milo, between you and me, in light of what’s been happening, the safest thing you can do for yourself and for our family is, yes, to shut up. At least until I figure out some things. It won’t be long, maybe a few more weeks. But I know you’ve been patient, so I’m going to give you two gifts. The first is very precious, and it needs to be protected.”
He put the physics book aside, reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out a small, silky bag that shimmered in the light from Milo’s reading lamp. Velvet, or some fabric like it. Milo leaned in for a better look.
He watched with growing fascination as his father pulled a crystal the size of a large piece of chalk out of the bag and held it between their faces. It was a dull, greenish color, but it appeared to contain some sort of glittering essence, as if tiny stars had been trapped inside—millions of them.
He handed it over. Milo received it, carefully, as if it could slip from his grasp at any moment and disappear through a crack in reality, ending up in a different dimension. He really did need to stop reading so much about quantum physics.
“Go ahead. Rub your finger along
the surface.”
Milo did as instructed. Weird. It was as if some kind of radiant energy had been transferred from his finger to the crystal. Green light washed over his hands and his father’s face.
He remembered what his father had said to his mother that night in his study.
He’s the only one of us capable of charging it…
“What is it?”
“It’s a beacon crystal.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Does it matter?”
Milo cracked a smile. “Six years old?”
“Six years old,” his father said with a nod. “Bear with me, okay?”
Milo returned his gaze to the crystal. He rubbed it several times. The light brightened, throwing a lively green glow everywhere.
“Whoa,” he said.
The galaxy of stars had grown. There were more of them now—billions of stars, probably. His father smiled at the crystal, and then at Milo. “You can tell it’s charged by looking at the core. Right now, it’s at full capacity. It’ll stay like that for days unless you use it up.”
“Use it up? How?”
“By showing it to people. That crystal is special and only protects people with good hearts—at least, that’s how the legend goes. If anyone with bad intent touches it, the power drains away, and you have to charge it back up again.” Abruptly, his father got up. Milo sensed a lie somewhere in that explanation—and that his father was uncomfortable with having said it. “Anyway, it’s bedtime for you.”
“But, wait! You said you had two things.”
His father had his back to him. His head tilted slightly, as if he suddenly regretted having come here in the first place.
“You’ll never sleep unless I show you. Might as well.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Milo. He was grinning.
“I’ll be right back,” he said.
CHAPTER 10
M ilo was absorbed in the crystal’s light, studying it intently when his dad returned a few minutes later. He was carrying an enormous, leather-bound book. A new smell filled the room—leather, old paper, and dust. Milo was surprised at how easily his dad carried the tome. The spine was almost as long as Milo’s arm, and it must have been six-inches thick.
His father plopped it onto the bed. He took a seat across from Milo, the book resting between them like a dangerous artifact neither dared to open.
“What is it?” Milo asked.
“A journal of sorts. I’m not just a salesman; I’m also what you would call a mythologist. When I travel to different countries, I make a point to study the myths and legends that have shaped their cultures. The one I have here is sort of a pet project. I’m thinking of writing a book. A fantasy novel someone like you would happily devour instead of doing his homework.”
“So, what you’re about to show me isn’t real?”
His father shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo. But maybe you could help your old man with a little feedback. Let me know what you think about it.”
“Any time. Should we begin?”
His father opened the book to the first page, revealing drawings that looked as if they’d been sketched by an expert hand.
“Did you…” Milo pointed at the page.
His father nodded proudly. “I’ve got a knack for drawing. Always have.”
He rotated the book so they could both admire the pages. The drawings were of men and women, and, in some cases, animals. But these weren’t just regular people and beasts. And, oddly enough, his father had grouped them into distinct categories. He had even used colored pencils in certain parts to highlight specific features that demanded attention—like multicolored eyes and feathers and other weird, non-human traits.
The first sketch was of a beautiful, red-haired woman with wings as white as snow. She looked like an angel. There were several drawings of her leaping, flying, and landing, and others in which she held foggy orbs of bluish light in her hands. She wasn’t the only one in her category. There were also drawings of winged men and children soaring through the air. They represented the first category.
Beneath them was the word “ACOLYTES”.
The next drawing depicted a man in a long cloak holding a fireball in one hand. A woman stood next to him, wearing a gold circlet and a long, flowing dress that reached down to her sandals. She held a staff with a blue crystal on the tip. From it, bolts of electricity sprayed out in every direction.
Beneath the man and the woman was the word “SAVANTS”.
Then there was a man with broad shoulders wearing heavy plate armor the color of ivory and wielding a giant, ridged sword. There was no way a normal man could carry a sword that big. He held it back over one shoulder, as if to slice something in front of him. His helmet, which was long and sharp, hid most of his face, but Milo could see the white of his clenched teeth.
There was a woman by his side—one with long, muscular legs wearing a simple tunic. Her hair had been pulled back into a tight braid, and her eyes were narrow and fierce above a broad nose. The woman looked as strong as the man, or stronger. In one drawing, she was crouched beneath a huge boulder. She held it up with little difficulty, even though it was as big as a car folded in half.
Beneath them was the word “SARGONAUTS.”
There followed a series of drawings portraying a woman with fiery-orange eyes and a long, curling tail. In some of the individual sketches, the woman was shapeshifting into different animal forms: an owl, a wolf, a cheetah.
She was accompanied by a man in some of the drawings. He looked just as agile as his female counterpart, and he had a furry, red tail, whereas the woman’s was black and short haired. Like a comic-book superhero, the man was shown scampering up the sides of buildings, leaping off the edges, and landing cat-like on the ground.
Beneath him was the word “FERALS”.
“Who are they?” Milo said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Fighters?”
“Just people,” his father said, “like you and me, except they have different ancestors. I guess you could say they’re from a different world than ours.”
“A different planet?”
His father closed one eye and thought about it. “Not exactly. They aren’t aliens, but they’re not from our world, either. Imagine another world that exists alongside this one. Another realm overlapping ours, so to speak—and you can travel from one realm to the other by creating rifts in the fabric of reality. Does that make sense?”
“Like a different dimension.”
Max snapped his fingers and pointed excitedly at Milo. “Exactly!”
“Dad, tell me everything.”
His father chuckled. “You know what I’m about to say.”
“Dad, come on. Forget school. I’ll ace it, anyway. Besides, I won’t be able to sleep otherwise, like you said. And I’ll give you feedback as soon as tomorrow night. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
His father shook his head. “Maybe you should be a salesman.” He sighed. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“The background stuff. You know, history, lore, what powers these characters have. It’ll help me understand…” His voice drifted away. Should he mention it?
Max gave him a stern look. “Understand what?”
“Nothing.” Milo shrugged. “I’m only six years old, remember?”
He and his father shared a smile.
That was it! His father had come in here with an agenda, and, finally, Milo understood what it was. He was preparing Milo for something big that was about to happen. But it had to be done subtly, in degrees. Hence, the lie about all this being a story.
Wait a minute.
This stuff couldn’t possibly exist. When had Milo abandoned the laws of science—and he was the king of science-loving geeks!—to begin believing in winged people, shapeshifters, and Herculean warriors?
I’m six years old, he reminded himself. Though I feel closer to two.
“Remember,” his father said. “Stories are a cushion that makes the trut
h easier to understand. The best stories always contain truth.”
Milo nodded and gazed down at the drawings. “I’m ready.”
“Good. As for this story, it takes place in a realm known as Astros…”
He proceeded to tell the most ridiculous story Milo had ever heard.
PART II
THE FAMILY BUSINESS
CHAPTER 11
Emma sighed.
It had been the most incredible story her father had ever told her. She only wished Milo would share her enthusiasm. His moods had been dark lately, but she didn’t blame him. Not with all the strange, unexplainable things going on.
But maybe this was the explanation!
“It’s just a story,” Milo said. “Fantasy, Emma. Like those sword-and-sorcery books I read that you always make fun of.”
Who are you trying to convince? Emma wanted to ask, but her brother looked so glum she didn’t want to test his patience.
“I know,” she said. “Obviously.”
They were in Milo’s room, sitting on the floor with their father’s massive mythology book between them, like two refugees keeping warm around a fire.
“But I want to hear it again,” she pleaded. “Don’t you have a photographic memory or something?”
“An eidetic memory.”
“So you remember it word for word?”
“Pretty much.”
“Total recall. So cool.” Emma was often fascinated by her brother’s incredible brain. Tonight, however, she was too eager to discuss her dad’s amazing story to care about anything else. Right now, her parents were locked in her father’s study. She had seen her dad walk in hours ago, carrying a folded map. Her mother had followed a minute later, carrying her laptop.
“Then tell me,” Emma said. “Maybe we can write down some feedback, help Dad with his book.”
Milo glared at her. “I’m not helping him with anything,” he said before looking down at the carpet again.
Emma sighed in frustration. Part of the reason she was here was to cheer her brother up. She hated seeing him so down.
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